Date of Award

12-2022

Document Type

Dissertation - Campus Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Discipline

Education Leadership

Abstract

In 2006, Dr. Shaun R. Harper infamously concluded that “Perhaps nowhere in higher education is the disenfranchisement of Black male students more insidious than college athletics”. His quote is not attributed to HBCUs but the power of five conferences of Predominantly White Institutions. The purpose of this study is to examine what exact factors influence the college selection of top-tier Black student-athletes to sojourn the trend of top-tier Black athletes only attending Predominantly White Institutions over HBCUs. Being able to pinpoint what influences are paramount to Black student-athletes will lead to an increase in HBCU’s athletic profits, school marketability, retention rate, monetization, graduation rate, and overall perception.

A qualitative phenomenological study was employed to examine the reasoning of top-tier Black athletes who chose to attend PWIs as opposed to HBCUs. Findings from this study revealed 75% of top-tier Black athletes did not know what an HBCU was, 75% of top-tier Black athletes did not get recruited by a HBCU, 100% of top-tier Black athlete’s families did encourage them to attend an HBCU, and 50% of top-tier Black athletes would or did suggest HBCUs to their children. Based on the interviews, there is a correlation between Blackathletes' awareness of HBCUs before graduating high school and their likelihood of enrolling in an HBCU. The results from this study may help HBCUs break into a $6 billion a year market. Since athletics is known as the university's front door, I argue that HBCU’s should use the athletic-based “Flutie Effect” method to improve their graduation, retention, alumni giving rates, and selectiveness if needed.

Committee Chair/Advisor

Patricia Hoffman-Miller

Committee Co-Chair:

Angela Branch-Vital

Committee Member

Janice L. Taylor

Committee Member

Anthony J. Harris

Committee Member

Abul Pitre

Committee Member

LS. Spencer

Rights

© 2021 Prairie View A & M University

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Date of Digitization

11/21/2024

Contributing Institution

John B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Prairie View

MIME Type

Application/PDF

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